Operating a successful business can be challenging. Competition is higher than ever before. Plumbers have some unique challenges to overcome in this environment. It takes strong marketing to attract and retain customers.
Naturally, you need to focus on the quality of your products and services. But you also need branding, advertising, and marketing.
From organic word-of-mouth campaigns to local advertising, marketing is important to home service providers. Sure, the internet has made things easier in many ways. But plumbers and other home services providers may be confused about how to move forward.
There are a lot of opportunities out there, but it’s harder than ever to stand out from the crowd.
If you want to carve out your place in the local market, it’s important to balance long-term branding with short-term promotion. When you get the balance right, anything is possible.
In this article, we’ll take a detailed look at branding, advertising, and marketing for plumbers. We’ll talk about free marketing solutions you can use right now. We’ll also review successful campaigns employed by other home service providers.
By the end, you’ll know how to jump-start promotion for your plumbing business. Even if you’re brand new to digital marketing, we’ve got you covered.
Branding for Plumbers
If you want to make a real long-term impact on your market, you need to pay attention to branding. You create value through your products and services. Customers identify this value through your brand.
Your brand is both a frame and a lens. It puts your business into perspective. It also helps your customers focus on the value you create. That’s because your brand is the reputation your company is known by.
What’s more, your company has a brand, whether you’ve created it with intention or not.
How your customers perceive your business is huge. A branding strategy is key to the process of cultivating your own reputation. What do you want your company to be known for? When customers talk about doing business with you, what do you want them to remember?
Your brand is a powerful signifier of the value you bring to the marketplace. You can use branding to promote values such as:
- Reliability
- Experience
- Customer service
- Attention to detail
- Value for money
RELATED ARTICLE: What Percentage of Your Budget Should Go Toward Marketing?
What Is Branding?
Branding is the ongoing promotion of a particular product or business through advertising and design. To be effective, branding depends on consistency and relevance.
As a plumber doing your best to compete, you need to present a clear vision that promotes your values and delivers confidence to your market.
There are several elements involved in branding, such as:
- Your logo
- Your website
- Your graphic design
- Your promise to potential customers
Your brand defines and envelops your entire business, and it includes all promotional materials both online and in the real world. When working out how to grow a plumbing business, each of these elements is vital.
Creating a Business Logo
Your logo plays a central role in all your branding endeavors. In fact, if you were going to select one element to represent your brand, it would probably be your logo. It should be one of the most easily recognizable things about your business.
Along with your company name, your logo is the element potential customers are most likely to associate with your company. When it comes to making and promoting a business logo, it’s important to make a strong impact and stay consistent. Your logo should be concise, well-designed, visually appealing, and practical. And it should be memorable.
To pack a punch with your logo, you need something simple, direct, and visually attractive.
Consider including a playful interpretation of business names, initials, or subject matter. For example, you could integrate your business initials with plumbing pipes or tools. While colors are a great idea, it’s important to limit yourself to just a few.
It’s also crucial to think about scale. Your logo will likely be copied and pasted time and time again in different sizes and on different materials. You want it to look good everywhere.
Developing a Website
Websites are an essential resource for modern businesses. While there was a time when plumbers didn’t need a website, those days are long gone.
The internet allows for tremendous global reach. But it’s also great for connecting communities and building local relationships. As a plumbing business, a good website will help you to attract new customers and present your business as an authority.
Your website isn’t just about growing your customer base. It’s also about retaining existing customers.
A good website should be easy to read and simple to navigate. It should provide value to your customers through:
- Informative content
- Memorable design
- Easy access to basics about your business
Remember to include a list of your services and prices. Make your contact information and service area clear. Your website helps to define your place in the market.
Testimonials are also great if you have them. They provide assurance and help promote trust.
Designing Consistent Graphics
From logos to websites, from work vehicles to print ads, graphic design is central to good branding. Much like creating a logo, powerful design is about impact and consistency.
It’s a good idea to define your business through colors, words, and pictures. You want to present your business to the market in the best possible light.
Consistent, well-designed graphics help inspire confidence. Once you’ve developed quality graphics, it’s important to use them repeatedly. That goes for both online promotion and campaigns that happen in the real world.
The design elements that represent your business should be consistent, no matter where they appear.
Making a Promise to the Market
At the end of the day, your brand is a promise you make to the market. More than a logo or website, it’s a psychological marker used to define your value and build relationships through recognition.
When you create an enduring brand image, you’re building trust with the local community. That promotes loyalty and gives your staff something to believe in. As a plumber, your brand is a powerful marker used to identify your services, highlight your capability, and showcase your pride to the world.
As you work through branding for your company, we encourage you to come back to one simple question over and over again. What promise are we making to the community?
Advertising for Plumbers
Business branding is absolutely critical. But there’s more to building and maintaining a successful marketing strategy than branding alone. Your plumbing business will also benefit from a variety of advertising methods.
Advertising is a broad term that involves lots of different elements. From Google Ads to social media and traditional print, there are multiple ways to promote your business. Ultimately, all of these call attention to your products and services.
Let’s review the commercial advertising landscape. When thoughtful strategy is combined with strong execution, you solidify your profitability. That’s true whether your focus is on maintaining a strong customer base or even growing your business over time.
RELATED ARTICLE: 7 Marketing Strategies for Contractors That Actually Work
What Is Advertising?
Advertising involves the commercial promotion of a product, service, or business through specific media channels. Social media and PPC are two possible channels, for example. To be effective, advertising needs to influence buying decisions and change consumer behavior.
Branding is a long-term strategy based on recognition and value. By contrast, advertising is a short-term tactic based on persuasion and opportunity.
Effective advertising may involve selling services or presenting your business to new markets. To do this without wasting time and money, you need to define your target market. You want to deliver a message that cuts through the noise.
The following ideas will help you to get more plumbing leads.
Google and PPC
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a highly targeted, very efficient form of online advertising. Google Ads is one of the most popular forms of PPC. These ads appear on search pages right beside organic results.
With traditional broadcast advertising, you pay a set amount of money per message. PPC, on the other hand, allows you to pay for ads based on the interest they receive. That means you only have to pay when people actually click on your ads.
For a plumber, this is gold—especially when you’re trying to reach specific local markets.
Social Media
Much like Google Ads, social media advertising allows you to present your ads on a specific online platform. These ads typically involve a PPC strategy. You can also purchase banner ads that function like billboards in the real world.
Social networks like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn are important venues. YouTube can also be used for advertising purposes.
Due to localization and demographics, Facebook is probably the best option for plumbers. For some plumbers, Instagram can also be useful.
Print Advertising
Despite the online revolution, traditional print advertising isn’t going anywhere. Print advertising includes newspapers, magazines, brochures, and journals. Print advertising is highly effective for many home service businesses.
It’s worth noting that this form of advertising is very broad. So it’s important to think carefully about placement and timing. For example, local publications are much more effective for plumbers because they help you reach a targeted market.
Print advertising is also available at many different price points. Simple text ads tend to be inexpensive. By contrast, full-page spreads tend to be more costly.
Integrated Promotions
You don’t have to choose between exclusively online and exclusively offline advertising. In fact, many plumbers choose to work with integrated campaigns.
For example, you could use a magazine ad to direct traffic to your website. Or you could promote your social media profile on your work vehicles. This is a great way to bridge the online and offline worlds. Plus, it allows you to measure the impact of your promotions through the power of digital media tracking.
Free Plumbing Marketing Strategies
Branding helps build your identity as a plumber. Advertising ignites immediate interest in your services. While both of these things are crucial, there’s another piece of the promotional puzzle.
Plumbing marketing is about exploring, creating, and delivering value to your target market. Many of these strategies may be familiar. Unlike advertising, some forms of marketing are free.
From classic word-of-mouth marketing to authority-building campaigns and partnerships, there are lots of great marketing ideas for plumbers. An online presence linked to Google Search and Google Maps is crucial for home service providers. Don’t forget to register for a Google Business Profile.
Once you’ve placed your flag online, the following ideas will help your business grow.
Promote Word-of-Mouth Marketing
As a plumber working in a local area, word-of-mouth is absolutely key. Nothing is quite as effective as personal recommendations from friends, family, and co-workers.
Word-of-mouth is naturally occurring. Any time customers share information about your business with friends and family, that’s word-of-mouth. While word-of-mouth happens more or less on its own, there are things you can do to make it more likely.
For example, you can:
- Build a social media community around your business
- Respond to online reviews
- Simply ask happy customers to spread the word
The best way to encourage positive word-of-mouth marketing is also the most obvious—deliver value to your customers. When you go out of your way to make a good impression, your customers are more likely to recommend your services.
When you offer something that’s worth spreading the word about, your business will grow naturally from the inside out.
Become a Thought Leader by Being Helpful
Plumbers offer an important service that’s used by everyone. But the essential nature of this service can be a double-edged sword. Most people only think about their plumbing needs when something goes wrong.
When that happens and there’s an issue, customers want to work with an expert.
If you want to become more than another name in a Google search, you need to present yourself as an authority in your field. There are lots of great ways to do this, from publishing blogs on your website to speaking at local business events and creating new products.
Trusted experts get more recommendations and bigger contracts. Plus, they’re able to charge more money.
Partner with Other Home Service Providers
One of the best ways to promote your plumbing business is to partner with other home service providers. This professional relationship-building strategy is easy to manage, highly effective, and 100% free.
From new builds to renovations and upgrades, plumbing customers often engage multiple businesses when completing large-scale projects.
If you have a good relationship with builders, electricians, and HVAC companies, you’re likely to get recommended for more contracts. When you’re ready to take this idea further, you can start offering discounts and promotional specials when people contract-related services.
Along with doing quality work and presenting a friendly face, you can work with local industry groups, business leaders, and trade unions.
Marketing Ideas and Examples from Real Plumbers
Plumbing marketing doesn’t have to be difficult. Instead of trying to re-invent the wheel, you can learn from the mistakes and successes of others.
The following examples are worthy of your attention.
Example #1: Local Optimization
It’s important to optimize your local presence. When you search for “New York plumber” on Google, the first business that pops up is Hub Plumbing & Mechanical.
Not only does it have the first organic ranking in the search engine, but it’s also been listed directly on Google with a free business profile. This business has only been operating for seven years, which shows how much is possible when you make the right moves.
Example #2: Helpful Content
Plumbers get more customers when they’re trusted. KS Services provides a great example of valuable and well-presented information used to gain trust. Their website breaks down an intimidating subject in an approachable way.
While your end goal is attracting customers rather than inspiring DIY projects, blogs and articles are a great way to earn trust and present yourself as an authority.
Example #3: Social Media Marketing
When you engage with your audience, you’re entering into relationships that have the potential to grow over time. Social media is a great way to build a community around your brand, which is exactly what Inner City Plumbing in Australia has done.
This business uses social media effectively to show specific plumbing issues, introduce the team behind the business, and lighten the mood with fun, entertaining posts.
Ready to Get More Plumbing Customers?
Are you ready to get more leads, create better relationships, and transform interest into paying customers? At EverConnect, we help plumbers and home service providers solidify their businesses with high-qualified, exclusive leads.
While the marketing techniques we’ve discussed above are essential, it’s smart to layer a lead gen partner on top of your plumbing marketing strategy. Doing so will ensure you have a steady flow of business. That’s important whether you’re in growth mode or just focused on maintaining your current profitability.
At EverConnect, we’re committed to providing leads that close. We’ll walk you through the process of selecting a lead generation strategy that works for you. Plus, you can always pause your lead gen services if needed.
